Dear Donald: If You Didn’t Lie So Much, Someone Might Believe You

Donald Trump is finding out the cost of being a pathological liar: People tend not to believe anything you say after a while. Such is almost certainly the case with his claim that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” and that he never asked Comey to back off the Flynn investigation.

President Trump on Thursday said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia, while adding the caveat that he can only speak for himself, and denied ever asking FBI Director James B. Comey to back off his agency’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump spoke in the wake of Deputy Attorney General’s Rod Rosenstein’s decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate any coordination between Trump associates and Russian officials.

“I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt, and there is no collusion between — certainly myself and my campaign, but I can only speak for myself and the Russians. Zero,” Trump said, at a joint news conference Thursday afternoon with President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia. “Believe me, there’s no collusion.”

Asked whether he urged Comey — as the fired FBI chief said he did in notes written after a meeting with the president — to drop the Flynn investigation, Trump said, “No, no,” before ordering the media to move on to the “next question.”

But as I’ve pointed out before, there are two people involved in this he said/he said situation, and only one of you is a proven liar to the point of being pathological about it. And it’s you. You lie about everything, even things you have no reason to lie about. So you’ll pardon us if we grant you less than zero credibility on this one.

And if you really think this is a witch hunt, how do you explain Rosenstein’s actions? You praised him for writing that letter criticizing Comey, talking about what a standup guy he is, how he’s extremely well respected. But he just put the investigation on a much stronger and more independent path, which means that if you really believe it’s a witch hunt, he’s leading the charge. Yet you just named him your Deputy AG. So were you lying about his credibility? Or are you lying about this being a witch hunt?

And if it’s a witch hunt, shouldn’t you want a thorough and independent investigation? What better way to prove it’s a witch hunt if there are not witches to be found?